He was con­victed last month by mag­is­trate Mun­tukayise Khu­malo of be­ing in pos­ses­sion of child pornog­ra­phy. About 142 im­ages of naked chil­dren and 176 videos of chil­dren hav­ing sex­ual in­ter­course were found on his lap­top.

In his plea, Macken­zie ad­mit­ted that on Fe­bru­ary 9, 2016, he un­law­fully and in­ten­tion­ally had in his pos­ses­sion im­ages and scenes of child pornog­ra­phy. He said that he was at home when po­lice ar­rived and pro­duced a search war­rant. He al­lowed them in and they took out pho­to­graphs.

Po­lice found a lap­top on top of a ta­ble in his lounge and seized it. They as­cer­tained that there were many im­ages on the de­vice which were in con­tra­ven­tion of the Films and Pub­li­ca­tions Act. “I was ar­rested and charged ac­cord­ingly. I ad­mit that I had in my pos­ses­sion, stored on my com­puter all of the im­ages. I ad­mit that at all times I was able to fully ap­pre­ci­ate and un­der­stand the wrong­ful­ness of my ac­tions,” he said.

Macken­zie ad­mit­ted that his ac­tions were wrong­ful, un­law­ful and in­ten­tional. “I have no valid de­fence for my ac­tions. I am truly re­morse­ful and beg the court’s mercy when im­pos­ing sen­tence,” he said.